This may turn out to be my surprise book of the year. I really didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. The cover is a little bit dodgy in my opinion. I put off reading it as long as I could before my blog tour date. I read the prologue which seemed to confirm my fears that it wasn’t for me because it didn’t inspire me enough to want to carry on reading.

I was about to contact the very understanding blog tour organiser to ask if I could do something else other than review this on my spot but then I carried on reading the rest of the book. Very soon I discovered that I didn’t just like this book, I absolutely loved it!

I wouldn’t categorise this as crime fiction, more like crime farce! It really shouldn’t work but it does!

Dermot is a hapless, former boy band member, now celebrity agent with Marcus Diesel a famous but unpleasant chef as a client.

A Russian billionaire Oleg Bukov obsessed with Marcus Diesel’s TV cookery show Wheel Of Fortune wants Dermot to help his daughter Svetlana launch a successful singing career. Unfortunately he’s a very scary man with an equally scary bodyguard/translator.

Dermot is also being pursued by a very angry sociopathic moneylender to whom he owes a considerable amount of money.

To complicate matters even further Bukov is under surveillance by an MI5 team. A member of the team is Anna, a childhood girlfriend of Dermot with an old score to settle with him. When Dermot is spotted meeting with Bukov MI5 want to find out why and use Anna to find out why because of her former connection with him. With Dermot’s life in danger and threats on his life from more than one source, the story is fast moving and hilariously funny at every turn.

I was suffering from flu when I read this and it cheered me up no end making me laugh out loud throughout. (Although I may have been delirious with fever! 🙂

I’ll leave it there. It’s very cleverly written, witty, funny, beguiling and just a very enjoyable read. I’ll look forward to more from this author.

I was first inspired to write when I read Lord of The Rings as a child. Back then the ambition was to create a whole fantasy world with dragons and sword fights. Sadly George RR Martin seems to have cornered that market, so I now try to comedy thrillers set in the (almost) real world instead. These feature spies, gangsters, vicious (if feckless) criminals, washed-up private detectives and daytime TV presenters. The Meal of Fortune is my first published novel. It is the first in a planned trilogy of comedy thrillers parodying society’s obsession with celebrity.

The follow-up, Tinker Tailor Solider Chef, sees the characters reunited in an attempt to foil a plot by the world’s most secretive intelligence agency (The Belgians) to bring the UK economy to its knees. The final book, centres on a referendum in Wales to decide whether the country should sell itself to an international technology giant for use as a conveniently located tax haven. It will be loosely based on the hilarious 80s film Local Hero.

My main rule in life is to never let tomato ketchup touch any food that is green. I am yet to work out any deep meaning behind this and suspect it is not the soundest of principles by which to live your life. But it’s better than quite a few I’ve come across down the years. Best not to get started on that one though.

I live in London with my fantastic wife and two remarkable children and didn’t vote for BREXIT.